Heads butt in Michigan >BY CAROLYN HIRSCHMAN, Special to Telephony

A long-running legal battle between Ameritech and the Michigan Public Service Commission won't necessarily hurt the carrier's bid to offer long-distance service in the state-but it probably won't help either.

Ameritech earlier this month became the first Bell regional holding company to ask federal regulators to let it offer long-distance service within its territory, starting with Michigan. The PSC's recommendation is due Feb. 6, and the Federal Communications Commission must make a final decision by April 17. The FCC extended the deadlines after Ameritech submitted new information to address "various minor omissions.

At the same time, Ameritech has been fighting a 1994 PSC order to implement intraLATA toll dialing parity statewide. The order means that customers who use carriers other than Ameritech to make intraLATA toll calls shouldn't have to dial a cumbersome five-digit access code to "dial around" the RHC.

Ameritech has resisted the order during three years of administrative and court challenges (see figure, below).

Opinions are divided on whether the court battle will bear on Ameritech's application for long-distance service.

"It's possible this could have an impact on the application, but the issues could move on a separate track," said Thomas Tauke, Nynex executive vice president of government affairs. The FCC could OK Ameritech's application but not allow implementation until the PSC order is met, he said.

Ameritech maintains that the court case doesn't affect its application to the FCC. AT&T, on whose business Ameritech wants to encroach, disagrees.

To offer in-region long-distance service, Ameritech consumers must be able to make local calls using a competitor's services without first having to dial an access code.

The court case involves not local calls but intraLATA toll calls, so they are separate issues, Ameritech says. That's not quite true-the Telecom Reform Act of 1996 requires the RHCs to offer intraLATA toll dialing parity before they start to sell in-region long-distance service.

Ameritech has toll-call dialing parity for 70% of its 4.9 million access lines in Michigan and promises to complete the process when it gets the OK for in-region long-distance service.

AT&T, which had asked the Supreme Court to vacate the stay and enforce the PSC order, argues that the court case affects Ameritech's in-region application because it reveals an unwillingness to let competitors in, as the Telecom Reform Act requires. "They've been resisting because it's a huge piece of revenue for them," said an AT&T spokesman. "It's an indication that Ameritech does not embrace competition for local phone service." At any rate, AT&T, MCI and others are opposing Ameritech's application on other grounds, namely that the Bell company doesn't truly face local service competition despite four interconnection agreements.